OTTAWA – Canadian telecom’s movers and shakers will be celebrated at the 2008 Telecom Laureate Awards gala dinner and induction ceremonies, October 29, 2008 at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Ottawa/Gatineau.
This year, Canada’s Telecommunications Hall of Fame will induct contemporary entrepreneurs, innovators and leaders into the Hall of Fame, including: * Jim Balsillie (RIM) * Mike Lazaridis (RIM) * Carol Stephenson (Richard Ivey School of Business) * David Golden (Telesat Canada) * The late David Simmonds and his sons, Robert Simmonds, Gordon Simmonds and Donald Simmonds (Lenbrook Communications)
This year’s recipient of the Hall of Fames Special…
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OTTAWA – Finally, after nearly two months of bidding, involving 331 rounds, Canada’s auction of wireless spectrum ended today, but is merely the first wave of change that will transform the nation’s telecommunications industry.
Canadian companies bid a total of $4.25 billion for 282 wireless-airwave licenses, the proceeds are more than twice the amount analysts had expected. The 15 successful bidders of the auction that began May 27 are eligible to receive licenses after making their final payments and showing compliance with Canadian ownership and control requirements.
Rogers Communications, Canada’s largest wireless carrier, bid $999.4 million for 59 licenses, reports…
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CHICAGO – With IPTV on course to become a credible Pay TV platform in North America, even though nobody expects AT&T or Verizon to crush the cable or satellite industry with their broadcast TV and VOD offers, IPTV is achieving good penetration in markets where it has deployed, says the organizers of the IPTV North America conference, to be held in Chicago July 22 and 23.
(Cartt.ca, as a media partner, will be providing coverage from the Windy City next week.)
In January, Verizon was claiming 21% video penetration for Keller, Texas, just four months after the service was…
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OTTAWA – A review of broadcasting in new media is utterly unnecessary, says an unprecedented joint submission to the CRTC by Canada’s largest Internet service providers.
Friday was the deadline for submissions on PN 2008-44, which only asked for comments on what the scope of any future proceeding on Canadian broadcasting in new media might be. The Commission wants advice on what questions it might ask when it decides to undertake a review of what new media is doing to broadcasting and what Canadian regulations might have to say about it. At this point, it doesn’t want to…
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MONTREAL – George Cope was officially made president and CEO of BCE and Bell Canada and appointed to the boards of both organizations, the company announced today.
Cope will be the first CEO under the company’s new owners, an investor group led by Teachers’ Private Capital, the private investment arm of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Providence Equity Partners Inc., Madison Dearborn Partners, LLC, and Merrill Lynch Global Private Equity. The transaction will close on or before December 11, 2008.
The new CEO joined Bell in 2005 as president and COO, after quitting as president and CEO of Telus…
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OTTAWA – Claiming he has a duty to protect the public from new texting fees (!), Industry Minister Jim Prentice has called the CEOs of Bell and Telus to his office to explain an impending wireless pricing change which both companies recently announced.
Beginning in August, both telcos intend to begin charging 15 cents per incoming wireless text message received by customers who are not a part of a data plan and who choose to pay as they go. Rogers, Canada’s largest wireless company, charges no such fee and has not announced plans to do so.
(Ed query: Is…
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OTTAWA – Globalive Communications Corp., the Yak-led consortium, which had boasted of becoming Canada’s fourth national carrier, appears to have a gaping hole in the province of Quebec as bidding activity peters out in Canada’s auction for advanced wireless services in the 2 GHz range.
“Globalive has as close to a national license as anyone, but Quebec is a hole for them,’’ says Evan Kelly, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP’s national communications industry leader. “They’ve backed off. Quebec is one of the regions where there are no multiple parties going after licences anymore, so it seems to have settled.’’
With 135 rounds…
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TORONTO – Will we have smart Internet networks, or big fat dumb pipes? If net neutrality proponents win the debate, we’ll wind up with big fat dumb pipes that’ll be far more congested than they are now. That’s the message three of the four panelists drove home at Wednesday’s net neutrality panel at the 2008 Canadian Telecom Summit.
Net neutrality, although it has different meanings, is essentially about equal access to the Internet. Proponents fear that broadband carriers will use their market power to control activity online and determine what content gets to the consumer first and fastest.
The…
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CTS 2008: A new way to do TV shows?
By Greg O’Brien
TORONTO – If he’d known then what he knows now, the mega-popular TV franchise Canadian Idol might have been brought to market with an entirely different business plan, said John Brunton, president and CEO of Insight Production, the company that makes the program for CTV.
Given the way the media market has grown and fragmented, perhaps the reality show could have first or also been sold to a telco or an ISP, he said, during a panel discussion on entertainment on broadband.
Noting that Rogers’ portal agreement…
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BANFF – Government policy for real new media, including social networks, should not focus on culture, but instead on industrial development, Telus recommends in a white paper on new media released during the Banff World Television Festival.
This approach will provide the flexibility needed to harness the opportunities of new media, suggests the report, entitled “A Friendly Future for New Media.”
“There are huge economic opportunities with new media. We should think about the world as a whole as the market for new media content,” said Telus vice-president of wireless, broadband and content policy Michael Hennessy.
The big western…
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